Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I did give a long retirement speech back in march, but I think I want to use this two minutes and 23 seconds left to thank the constituents of Inuvik Twin Lakes for allowing me to be their representative. I hope that I've represented them well. I hope I've conducted myself well in this Assembly. I know we've had our differences, but I would expect nothing less. Some of my biggest debates, arguments if you want to call them, were with people who I consider friends of mine, and that's what we do. So you're doing your job, I'm doing mine, but at the end of the day I hope we decided what's best for the people of the Northwest Territories.

To prospective candidates and those who are running again, bring that attitude when you go hit the campaign trail. Don't just tell them that you're going to do something for them; show them that you're going to do something for them. You may even last 15 years; and I think that's been one of my trademarks. I'd like to believe that is faith that allowed me to come down and work on their behalf.

We've been thanking a lot of people today, and I think I should, as well. Tim Mercer and the Legislative Assembly staff, thank you. I always recall our first conversation --I won't tell you exactly how it went -- back in 2004, but I've always appreciated you and your counsel, so thank you.

Thank you to the staff that I've had over the years. I've had the privilege of having good people. If you surround yourself with good people, that allows you to do yourself better. My current executive secretary, Rachel, up in the gallery. Mr. Ralph Collinson, who has been with me for my whole 11 years as a Minister. He provided me with a lot of good counsel. I bug him a lot, but he knows. You started out as an employee; I consider you a friend, now, and remember I said that at Christmastime.

I've had the opportunity to work with a number of deputies over the years, from Jeff and Mike and Willard, Tom Williams. I'm going to give him the "C" now, because he's the captain. In this Assembly, I've had Erin, Kelly, Joe Dragon, David Stewart; I actually remembered his name. A lot of you don't realize that I was at a meeting with David Stewart one time; I'm going to go a little over, so I should seek unanimous consent to conclude my statement. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

---Unanimous consent granted

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We'll provide the information.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. That level of detail, I don't know exactly what the scope of work is going to be in the project. I think that I may have jumped the gun here a bit by pointing out how much money was actually allocated to this particular project, because it doesn't show in the Infrastructure document that we are debating. It shows in some of the substantiation that we have here. I think I jumped the gun a bit there, and maybe giving some people a head start on putting a price together for this particular project. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. My understanding, and the reason that it is coming forward, is that we are hoping to start some of the work in 2021, this upcoming fiscal year. We have $4.875 million through this process that we are going through allocated for this particular project. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The status of that is they have done a feasibility report on that. New modular gas-generating plant and LNG storage and vaporization facility on the parcel of land outside the downtown core in Fort Simpson. Design basis engineering work has shown that the total project cost would be $13 million. This is much higher than the Inuvik project due to the fact that Fort Simpson is a greenfield project with no existing gas infrastructure. This is one of the infrastructure projects slated for funding under federal infrastructure funding. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I am not sure. I will have to have those discussions. If there is any kind of opportunity to work with industry that wants to make a profit but, at the same time, provide opportunities for northern people and northern businesses, then we have to work with them. What that consists of, I am not sure at this moment, but I had an idea that this is where this was going. The Member has clearly indicated his non-support of a capital budget of $417,000,000. That is going to provide opportunities and infrastructure for a lot of the communities across the Northwest Territories that are badly in need of this. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. When they built the Mackenzie Valley fibre optic line, I think that we only needed 24 strands in that line to meet our requirements. The Minister of the day said, "How much more would it cost to double it?" They said it wasn't much more, so they doubled it to 48 strands with the anticipation that you have to start thinking about the future. It was going to be less expensive to do it now than to have to build it in the future.

We have one more day in session, and we have another week as Members, and I will commit to the Member that I will talk to the department and the folks that are involved to try to find a rationale for this particular project. Obviously, there is some thought to the future. I am not too familiar with this, and I apologize for that. What I am trying to do is work on a budget that is going to address our future needs and provide some opportunity for the present folks of the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. My understanding is that we are still working on the figures. We want to try to be as accurate as possible before we bring those forward. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I will respond first, Mr. Chair, through you. Then I will go to Minister Schumann, who the Member's question is for. We appreciate the Member giving us a bit of a heads-up that he was going to be asking some of these technical questions. We tried to get the information together. The one we didn't anticipate was the capacity on the lines, otherwise, we would have had that information, but we tried to get all the other information. Again, we appreciate the heads-up because the Member does ask technical questions, and we need our folks to put that information together. So, if we missed the one on the capacity of the line, then it's on me, and I will go to Minister Schumann through you, Mr. Chair, to expand on the Member's question.